Compiling debian stock kernel with badram (Was: Re: Broken part of ram -- 100% broken?)
On 5/10/05, Alexander Toresson <alexander.toresson@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/9/05, ABrady <nala@kc.rr.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 09 May 2005 12:44:25 -0700
> > Alexander Toresson <alexander.toresson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > My brother has an old computer, a Compaq Presario, which he is running
> > > windows 98 on. He's not running any game on it, and win98 is really
> > > unstable on it, so I've manage to persuade him to make me install
> > > debian on it. However, just to check, I ran memtest86 on it, to check
> > > the ram. Result: lots of errors between 14 and 17 mb.
> > > Could linux be setup to not use this area of the ram? Getting new ram
> > > for this computer may not be easy, it's a compaq, so it may need
> > > special compaq ram... dunno if pc100/pc133 would do...
> > >
> > > Regards, Alexander Toresson
> >
> > Well, there's this:
> >
> > http://rick.vanrein.org/linux/badram/
> >
> > The downside is, it looks like you'd have to have a running system to
> > get it installed, and I don't know of any way to do that.
> >
> > The upside is, there is a potential alternative. You could create a live
> > CD with the patch installed.
> >
> > You'd basically (off the top of my head--I've never tried this) need to
> > install a sytem on a good machine, compile a kernel with the patch,
> > create your own CD from that and distribute it. Then anyone using the CD
> > would have access to the patch.
> >
> > The other downside is, if you've never created a live CD of your own, it
> > can be a lot of work, at least the first time.
> >
> > There might already be such a live CD released, but I'm not aware of
> > any. Here's a list of them, though, if you'd like to look through it to
> > see if you can locate anything:
> >
> > http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
> >
>
> I actually found a mandrake live cd that seemed to have badram.
> However, I want to use debian. The computer is currently quite stable,
> however, programs crash occasionally. So I'll try compiling the custom
> kernel as a package on another computer, then install a barebone
> debian on the computer with bad ram and installing the kernel package
> on it.
>
> Regards, Alexander Toresson
>
I wanted to compile a kernel equivalent to the stock debian
2.6.8-2-686, but with badram and compiled for pentium 2/celeron.
Therefore, I downloaded the kernel source from the apt repository,
extracted it, patched it with the badram patch for 2.6.8.1 kernels,
copied /boot/config-2.6.8-2-686 to
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.6.8-2-686/.config, ran make oldconfig (which
asked about badram, andI answered yes), I then ran make menuconfig,
and changed so that it's going tobe compiled for pentium 2/celeron,
and then I exited.
I then ran:
make-kpkg --append-to-version=badram --revision=lex.badram.1.0 kernel_package
(I also use ccache)
Then I installed the kernel-image package created in /usr/src.
I have no idea how to create an initrd equal to the stock debian,
so I used the stock debian. (added the appropriate commands to
/boot/grub/menu.lst)
When I then tried to boot the kernel, I got a lot of errors about
"module not found",
then a lot of errors about "/lib/modules/2.6.8badram/modules.dep not
found", and then "Kernel panic: attempted to kill init".
What am I doing wrong?
Regards, Alexander Toresson
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